Barring arguably Fury in 1... That's a grand total of 0 high level knockouts? And, of course, except for Parker. He doesn't always connect, except for when he's fighting his usual - mostly journeymen and the occasional old gatekeeper. I wouldn't be at all certain he'd connect on Wlad - Wlad wasn't as sloppy as Fury, even at that age. Definitely, there's no question that Wlad was declined badly. Whether he was worse, overall, than the Wlad that fought Fury I'm undecided on. Either way, I'd still pick that Wlad to ice Wilder. Absolutely no question, and I would have to think very little of you to suspect you'd pick prime Wilder over prime Wlad lol (there are very few that "special"!). Personally think you're overrating Wilder quite a lot, and/or underrating that Wlad a bit, but I suspect that'll be agree to disagree territory.
Show me a single overhyped fighter who gets blown up in the official ranks without good reason, but shows up poorly in independent rankings... I'll wait over here... Trying to create an unassailable position by refusing to think is not very clever, but I guess it's impossible to lose if you just stick your fingers in your ears and "la la la" yourself to sleep.
The status quo is often wrong. And ranking him that high when he never beat a single contender is ****ing ludicrous. He wasn't top 3 at any point, realistically.
Without the revisionism here, wlad was very scared of punchers. His chin and fear of getting hit were some of his weakest points.
The thread posted it i didn't see the 2017 point still stands wlad at any age is just levels above Wilder.
I suggest you go back and look at all the punchers he beat the dude pretty much cleaned out the division for over a decade. He fought all types of fighters.
Honestly Wilder probably would've caught him after being down on the cards and getting dropped, Wlad was too old at that point
You're trying to rewrite history. Because rhe reality is he did, he beat Stiverne, who was also ranked in the top 3 because he knocked out Arreola. The whole world ranked Wilder as one of the top 3 heavyweights between Wlad and Usyk. You will have done as well, because everyone did. During this time frame the fight everyone wanted was AJ vs Wilder because they were seen as the top two.
And lost against some punchers, he didn’t like punchers. His way to beat them was to hold them as much as possible.
We talking about Wilders competition vs Wlad or Wilder vs Wlad? The point is, Wlad has shown on multiple occasions he’s susceptible to losing to far lesser fighters if they can punch and have heart… two things Deontay had in abundance.
Hey genius be beat a hell of a lot more then he lost to and no it was fight at range just like Lewis.
@kriszhao No one’s disputing that Wlad was great or had a good record…. You’re pretending there’s no conceivable dynamite punching, iron willed Deontay Wilder stops shaky chin and legs Wlad, who has been stopped several times by lesser fighters, and hurt many times as well… Sam Peter had him going up and down like a ping pong ball, and you’re acting like it’s inconceivable that Deontay Wilder could stop him…. Of course, Wlad would be the favorite and rightfully so - just like literally every fight that he lost before AJ….